The Chief Executive Officer of Access Bank Plc, Dr. Herbert Wigwe, has explained that the need to reposition the bank for global relevance informed its change to holding company structure.
This comes at the backdrop of the shareholders’ approval of the change in the Board of Directors in furtherance to the completion of the Scheme of Arrangement between the bank and holders of its fully paid ordinary shares of 50 kobo each resulting in the listing of Access Holdings Plc and related companies on the Nigerian Exchange Limited, NGX Limited.
Speaking at a media parley yesterday in Lagos, Wigwe said: “First of all the Banking Act has established the fact that you rather be a bank place or you could simply choose a narrow licence. So in the past under Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as the Central Bank governor, we have chosen to pursue a narrow licence with Access Bank Plc, just a traditional aspect of the business. Now when we finished our five years plan we told ourselves that we wanted to create a different type of institution, we wanted to create an institution that gives premium position in an ecosystem that will be connected globally and all of that. Therefore the narrow licence could no longer be enough and sufficient. So we began another five years plan that culminated where we are to basically establish a holding company for this purpose”.
Continuing, he said: “Now the existing shareholders of Access Bank were people we migrated to the holding company. Now we obviously had to delist the traditional bank from NGX and put it on the OTC platform where Access Holding PLC is the sole shareholders.
“The answer is we are creating a big business institution and there is no reason why, perhaps in the next 15 years, when you are counting some of the top five African indigenous banks Access Bank will not be there”.
Meanwhile, the 2021 full year results of the bank recorded gross earnings of N971.9 billion, representing an increase of 27 per cent over N764.7 billion posted in the financial year 2020. Profit Before Tax (PBT) for the period rose by 40 per cent Year on Year, y/y to N176.7billion from N125.9billion in 2020. Profit After Tax (PAT) also grew by 51 per cent y/y to N160.2billion from N106.0 billion in 2020.
